Thursday, June 21, 2012

I need help from Taishanese native speakers out there on pronunciation and usage! Hidden in an SF Chronicle article, I found a reference to the historic Bok Kai Temple in Marysville. On the temple’s website and on Wikipedia, I saw the temple’s name transcribed as 北溪廟.

On the Wikipedia page, there is another reference to this deity as “Bok Eye” with a link to a page on Xuan Wu 玄武, who is also referred to as the Northern Emperor or Bei Di 北帝. “Bok Eye” looks like an English transcription of the Taishanese pronunciation of 北帝. You probably see where I’m going…

Is 北溪 a Taishanese eggcorn for 北帝? If so, that would be really cool. Or maybe I’m just missing out on a bigger piece of Chinese history and culture.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

The bulk of last year’s blogging covered the Taishanese Basic Course with the addition of my own commentary. This blog also helped me accomplish some personal goals, among them being proficiency in the Cangjie input method, my first YouTube video and, most importantly, a constant connection with the Taishanese language. Much of this would have been impossible without the invaluable contribution of my readers, most notably Ben, Dominic and Stephen. Thank you so much.

Below I’ve pulled together a list of the lessons I covered in 2011. These lessons comprise the first volume of the Basic Course.

I’m going to take a break from posting more lessons for a few months. For this new year, I have some new and shiny goals, but first I have to wrap up some other projects and also figure out which goals are realistically achievable. The goals include an online searchable dictionary, more videos, interviews and profiles of Taishanese speakers, more structured lesson formats, and perhaps even a little interactive learning software. If you’d like to help out with some of this, let me know!

As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or corrections, please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts.

Note the different types of negation (in this case, 唔 m̈) in the following phrases, which are based off of the reading passage. When 得 ak is used to mark an adverb, the negation is placed before the adjective; when 得 ak is used to denote ability/possibility (i.e. “to be able to”), the negation is placed before the verb.

佢瞓得唔夠。Kui fun-ak m̈-gau.
“He didn’t sleep enough.”

佢唔翻得工。Kui m̈-fan-ak gung.
“He couldn’t go to work.”

For native speakers, this contrast should not be surprising in any way. I point it out because English negation usually applies to the whole verb phrase, even when the phrase contains an adverb. Thus we say, “I didn’t sleep enough” rather than “I slept not enough.” Taishanese grammar looks closer to the latter, with the negation before the adverb, not the verb.

Now you might wonder, what happens if you put the negation before the verb instead of the adverb? There’s an example of this very structure in the reading:

佢起身唔起得早。Kui hī sin hī-ak dō.
“He couldn’t wake up early.”

In this case, I interpret the placement of negation before the verb to indicate that 得 ak denotes ability/possiblity.

My dear readers, is this interpretation correct?

And if you notice any other typos and errors, please don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below!

Monday, December 26, 2011

The basic grammatical pattern for lessons 18 and 19 is the use of 得 ak to modify verbs. This lesson takes a few new words and builds on those previous lessons by looking at question structure.

1

A: 請問該間係唔係美國陸軍語言學校呀？

Tīng mùn kwọi gan hài m̈-hài Mị-Gwōk Lùk-Gun Ngụi-Ngün Hòk-Hàu* a?

B: 係呀，該間係美國陸軍語言學校。

Hài a, kwọi gan hài Mị-Gwōk Lùk-Gun Ngụi-Ngün Hòk-Hàu*.

A: 黃先生，唔好意思。令你等嗲該久。

Wöng Lhing-Sang, m̈-hō yi-lhu. Lìng ni āng-e kwọi gīu.

B: 唔緊要，唔緊要。我來嗲冇幾久喲。

M̈-gīn-yiau, m̈-gīn-yiau. Ngoi löi-a mo-gī-gīu yiak.

2

A: 佢講唔講得快呀？

Kui gōng m̈-gōng-ak fai a?

B: 快，佢講得快。

Fai, kui gōng-ak fai.

3

A: 佢講唔講得清楚呢？

Kui gōng m̈-gōng-ak ting-chō nē?

B: 唔清楚，佢唔講得清楚。

M̈-ting-chō, kui m̈-gōng-ak ting-chō.

4

A: 你行唔行得快呀？

Ni häng m̈-häng-ak fai a?

B: 快，我行得快。

Fai, ngoi häng-ak fai.

5

A: 佢吃唔吃得多呢？

Kui hiak m̈-hiak-ak u nē?

B: 唔多，佢唔吃得多。

M̈-u, kui m̈-hiak-ak u.

6

A: 你起身起唔起得早呀？

Ni hī sin hī m̈-hī-ak dō a?

B: 早，我起身起得早。

Dō, ngoi hī sin hī-ak dō.

7

A: 佢講說話講唔講得清楚呀？

Kui gōng sut-wà gōng m̈-gōng-ak ting-chō a?

B: 唔清楚，佢講說話唔講得清楚。

M̈-ting-chō, kiu gōng sut-wà m̈-gōng-ak ting-chō.

8

A: 你着衫着唔着得快呀？

Ni jiak sạm jiak m̈-jiak-ak fai a?

B: 快，我着衫着得快。

Fai, ngoi jiak sạm jiak-ak fai.

9

A: 佢飲酒飲唔飲得多。

Kui ngīm dīu ngīm m̈-ngīm-ak u nē?

B: 唔多，佢飲酒唔飲得多。

M̈-u, kui ngīm dīu m̈-ngīm-ak u.

10

A: 對唔住，對唔住，黃先生，我來遲嗲。

Ui m̈-jì, ui m̈-jì, Wöng Lhing-Sang, ngoi löi chï e.

B: 唔緊要，唔緊要，我亦係正話來喲。

M̈-gīn-yiau, m̈-gīn-yiau, ngoi yìak-hài jing-wà löi yìak.

This lesson brings together the V 唔 V formula used to ask yes-or-no questions (see lesson 11) along with the adverbial 得 ak structure covered in the previous two lessons.

V 唔 V 得 + Adj

When the verb appears without an object, then the above structure is used, combining the V 唔 V formula and adding 得 ak to the last verb. Here are two examples from the dialogue:

佢講唔講得清楚呢？Kui gōng m̈-gōng-ak ting-chō nē?
“Does he speak clearly?”

佢吃唔吃得多呢？Kui hiak m̈-hiak-ak u nē?
“Does he eat a lot?”

The appropriate “yes” or “no” response is to reply with the adjective, thus 清楚 ting-chō for “yes (he speaks clearly)” or 唔清楚 m̈-ting-chō for “no (he doesn’t speak clearly).”

V + Object + V 唔 V 得 + Adj

As discussed in the previous lesson, things get messy when the verb is followed by an object (e.g. “speak Taishanese” or “do business”). In order to add 得 to the verb, the verb is repeated after the object. Now you have two verbs in the sentence—on which do you choose to apply the V 唔 V structure from lesson 11?

You choose the second. This means you will have a sentence with the verb repeated three times! It’s pretty cool (or crazy, depending on your perspective). Here are a couple examples from the dialogue:

Friday, December 16, 2011

This lesson continues expanding on the same grammatical structure from lessons 18 and 19. The new vocabulary—including some very useful expressions—are included below.

唔好意思 · m̈-hō yi-lhu · I’m sorry, I am ashamed of myself

令 · lìng · to cause

等 · āng · to wait, let, class

嗲 · e · verb suffix

該久 · kwọi gīu · so long, that long

唔緊要 · m̈-gīn-yiau · it doesn’t matter, not important

冇幾久 · mo-gī gīu · not very long time

冇 · mo · do not have, negative

早 · dō · early

遲 · chï · late, tardy

說話 · sut-wà · to speak, talk

講說話（講話）· gōng sut-wà (gōng wà*) · to speak, talk

飲酒 · ngīm dīu · to drink liquor, to have a banquet

着衫 · jiak sạm · to dress

來遲嗲 · löi chï-e · to come late

One of my favorite expressions is 唔好意思 m̈-hō yi-lhu “I’m sorry!” A common response is 唔緊要 m̈-gīn-yiau “It’s not important (so no need to worry).”

As a note on transcription, I use the character 着 to write jiak “to wear.” The character 着 is commonly considered a simplified character, while 著 is the corresponding traditional character. As I try to do elsewhere, I’ve transcribed the character as is done in the Basic Course (which was published in the 1960s), even while this choice would likely be considered inconsistent in many other contexts today.

If you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments section!

A quick orthographic note before moving onto the key grammar point—in line 6, the basic course uses a novel character formed of a 口 radical plus 宕 to indicate dọng as in dọng mạn, which I prefer to transcribe as 昨晚. (Intrestingly enough, the transcription on page 82 is dok instead of dọng, as the character would suggest.)

V + Object + V得 + Adj

In the dialogue for lesson 18, I pointed out three examples from the text of how to make phrases in Taishanese that correspond to adverbs in English. I’ve repasted the examples below, which use the verbs 講 gōng, 教 gau and 讀 ùk.

To recap from the previous lesson, where English follows the general pattern of VERB + ADJECTIVE + “-ly” (more or less), Taishanese uses the construction of VERB + 得 ak + ADJECTIVE. Importantly, 得 ak must be immediately next to the verb. I’ll refer to the requirement that the verb and 得 ak be adjacent as the “adjacency requirement.”

In the examples above, the verbs appear without an object. But when the verb is followed by an object, where do we put 得 ak?

The solution is to repeat the verb at the end of the phrase and to place 得 ak after the repeated verb, as in the examples below from the current dialogue.

According to the adjacency requirement, we would expect to see 得 ak between 行 häng and 慢 màn. I have no personal intuition as to why this is the case. I hope some of my more knowledgable (not to mention more thoughtful) readers can provide some input on this. What do you think?

As always, if you see a correction that needs to be made—or have any other thoughts you’d like to share—please let me know in the comments section below!